


100 Days

by violetvaria



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Bromance, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, math geekiness, no happy ending, some general geekiness, video messages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 03:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18792064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetvaria/pseuds/violetvaria
Summary: Jack has been gone for one hundred days. Mac watches a video message Jack left for him.





	100 Days

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: No character death, but there is the mild implication of the _possibility_ that Jack might be dead.
> 
> I love the fics that have Jack and Mac Skyping while Jack is gone, but this is slightly different in that Jack just recorded some videos for Mac and left them for him.

Mac has always liked the number one hundred.

Although prime numbers are infinitely more fascinating in their wild unpredictability and irreducible impact on encryption protocols, perfect squares are strangely satisfying, comforting in their pattern of consecutive odd integers, beautiful in their products, the regular rhythm thrumming like the beat of a favorite old song.

_“Hey, Mac. Another video. Bet you’ll be glad for me to stop ramblin’.” Jack hums idly for a second. “’Course, you’ll miss seein’ this handsome face.”_

It wasn’t until the fourth video that Mac was able to identify the snatches of the tune Jack hums while he tries not to say what he’s thinking and makes a valiant effort to say what he wants Mac to think.

_Time._

_“Anyway, hi. Good evening, or morning, or whatever time you’re watchin’ this.”_

Time is an ephemeral concept. Thinking about it too much creates more questions than revelations, can send even a genius nearly out of his mind. It flows forward because of the human incapacity to perceive it another way, but it is not always perceived at the same pace. The word _century_ , most commonly used for a group of one hundred years, can actually be used with any collection of one hundred.

Jack has been gone for one hundred days.

Jack has been gone for a century.

_“This is the last one of these I’m doin’, just so you know.” Jack’s voice is slurring very slightly, only enough for someone who knows him as well as Mac does to notice. “Guess maybe I shouldn’t’ve tried to do ‘em all in a row, huh? We’re probably both sick of ‘em by now.” Jack aims for a laugh as he rubs a weary hand across his face, nearly knocking over one of the three empty beer bottles at his elbow._

Mac adhered to the arbitrary dates Jack assigned each video, automatically seeking a pattern for the numbers. The one when Jack had been gone two weeks, and then three, had made sense. Had been a nice heartache to look forward to and dread. Then there was a gap until Jack had been gone forty-two days. Another gap. Another ache. Sixty-three days, followed like an apology by one at seventy days. And the last three close together. Eighty-four days. Ninety-one. One hundred.

_“Well, I ain’t got nothin’ new to say on this one, but if you’re bein’ your usual Boy Scout self, you ain’t seen one in over a week, so I guess I can repeat. I’m proud of you, kid. I’m proud of you, and I want you to stay safe, and if you don’t, I’m gonna come kick your ass, got it?”_

Every time Mac wakes up in medical, picks himself up after an explosion or a hit, ducks just fast enough to hear the whistling of a bullet overhead, he wonders if Jack would have been able to come back for his funeral if he hadn’t made it.

_“If I can keep it together, so can you—probably better ‘n me, if you want the truth—and—and that’s what’s gonna happen.” Jack’s voice hitches, and he hums a few strangled notes before winking exaggeratedly. “I mean, you can see for yourself that I’m all right. See?”_

In spite of himself, Mac huffs a dry laugh. Jack on video is an odd sight, with his intimate vocal inflections and awkwardly distant body language.

Mac only lets himself watch the videos once. He can practically recall them word-for-word anyway. It is only after a particularly stressful day, after one too many close calls, after yet another reminder of the absence in his life, that he goes back to one of the videos he’s already seen.

He has watched the first seven videos thirty-nine times so far.

_“You—you gotta take care of yourself, buddy.” Humming until the voice steadies. “I know Desi’ll watch your back, and you got the team, but—you know. You gotta do your part too, all right? You gotta have another tomorrow.”_

Tomorrow’s just another day. Each day succeeds the next, carelessly, inexorably.

In one hundred days, a person can quit smoking, learn the basics of another language, train for a marathon, travel around the world. One hundred days is enough time to cement a new habit. It is the length of time allotted for a dragonfly to hatch, to fly, to mate, to live, to die.

It is enough time to complete a mission and return home.

_Jack clears his throat. “I was, uh, thinkin’ about readin’ today’s headlines and makin’ predictions for the next hundred days so you’d be all impressed, you know, when they all came true. But I figure maybe you don’t want a filbert here.”_

_Filibuster_ , Mac corrects mentally.

_“You’re probably real busy and all, so I oughtta wrap this up. You know, short and sweet.”_

Mac’s breath is coming faster, and he suspects his heartrate is elevating as well. He absently reaches for his wrist, welcoming the perverted sense of triumph when he counts one hundred as sixty seconds slip by. One hundred beats per minute is within a normal resting pulse range, but only just.

That sums up Mac’s life for the past one hundred days.

_“Guess I wanna say…you’re the best partner I ever had, Mac. Best I could EVER have. No one I’d rather have watchin’ my back, and I’m sure glad I got to watch yours. If…if I can’t do it again, remember that I don’t regret any of it, all right?”_

Adding the numbers one through one hundred together results in 5050. It is a good number. Fifty-fifty. Repetition and rhyme. Fifty-fifty. Like a partnership.

_“And get outta your head once in a while, okay, partner?” More humming. “Man, what’re you doin’ without the benefit of Jack Dalton wisdom?”_

Wasting time. Waiting.

Time is a punishment. One hundred days race by in an instant and stretch out like an ocean’s expanse.

It was only one hundred days from the first volley of the Spanish-American War to its ceasefire. An entire war over in less than four months.

_“But hey, you just gotta focus on you, on what you need to do. Don’t worry ‘bout me. You know I’m gonna be just fine.”_

Jack’s self-control is cracking. This lie is even easier to spot than the others that have littered his video messages. _I’m fine. I’ll be okay. You don’t need to worry._ One hundred days of lies.

_“Just focus on keepin’ your head down and not lettin’ anything blow up in your face, you know what I mean? I wanna find you with all your fingers and—and eyebrows when I get back to you. ‘Cause you know I’m comin’ back.”_

Lie.

It isn’t as though Jack planned to be gone this long. As the final minutes of the final video tick down, Mac realizes Jack never intended for him to see this one.

_“Ah, hell, truth is, if you’re watchin’ this…well, we both knew it was always a possibility. I mean, every day in this line of work…”_

Not…a lie.

 _“I love you, man. Guess I never really said it much_ —”

Mac manages to roll his eyes even as they begin to water.

_“—but I love you. You’re my family, Mac. And…” Jack takes a deep breath and hums for a moment. “I’m sorry to leave you. Especially like this. Maybe without you even really knowin’ for sure what happened at the end.” Jack is silent for a long while, looking down. “Don’t let that pinball around in that big ol’ brain of yours, all right? It—it ain’t important what the end was. Don’t go chasin’ that ghost, Mac. I mean it.”_

One hundred days after Napoleon’s return to Paris, he met his Waterloo.

_“Man, you know if there is any way in the world I can get back to you, I will. You gotta know that. I wouldn’t leave you, Mac. Not if I have any say in it.”_

At one-hundred degrees Celsius, water molecules lose the fight to retain their hydrogen bonds and dissipate into vapor.

Mac has waited one hundred days, each day slowly stripping him bare, like the wind clawing the leaves from a tree.

_“But if this is the end…you’ll be all right, kid. You will. It was never your fault, remember? You just keep livin’ your life and makin’ me proud.”_

One hundred is a good percent. It is the number of cents in a dollar; Mac appreciates the base-ten system. But the number one hundred, in the grand scheme of things, really has no special significance. Mac knows this.

_“I don’t believe I’m sayin’ this this time.” Jack is muttering, eyes wet and downcast. He breathes shakily and looks straight into the camera. His voice his husky, but his gaze is strong. “I love you, Mac. Tell everybody that—I love ‘em. They already know, same as you, but tell ‘em for me anyway. ‘Specially Riley, okay?”_

There is no reason that Jack being gone for one hundred days should hurt any more than ninety-nine.

_“Goodbye, brother.”_

But it does.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Jack is humming is [**Time**](https://youtu.be/oFLysouG86I) by Hootie & The Blowfish.
> 
> Liberties were taken with historical events. For example, if one uses May 1, 1898 as the date of the first action in the Spanish-American War, it is actually 103 days to the ceasefire signed on August 12. Same with Napoleon's return to Paris/Battle of Waterloo. Apologies to any historians/history buffs.
> 
> Some number geekiness: Perfect squares do occur in regular patterns. For example, the first six perfect squares are 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36 which are separated, respectively, by 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 (consecutive odd positive integers). 
> 
> The products of perfect squares are also patterned.  
> 4 multiplied by 9 is 36, which is the square of 6.  
> 4 multiplied by 16 is 64, the square of 8.  
> 4 multiplied by 25 is 100, the square of 10.  
> The products are perfect squares of numbers that increase by 2 each, the square root of 4.  
> The products of 9 and another square would result in perfect squares of numbers that increase by 3 each, the square root of 9, and so on with other square numbers.
> 
> Also, I did not add the numbers 1 through 100 longhand, but mathematically the sum _should_ by 5050. An easy trick for adding consecutive numbers: add the first and last number, and then multiply by half the largest number. For example, 1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21. OR, 6+1 = 7. Half of six is 3. 7 x 3 = 21. For more information, check out the delightful book [**_The Number Devil_**](https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B009OZN7IO&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_gFX1Cb8NVKH8E) by Hans Magnus Enzensberger.


End file.
